Busy Around the Workshop – Small Progress On A Dozen Fronts

Some of you might recall I bought a Bridgeport CNC Mill (project) a while back.  The plan is to update it to a modern control like I did with the Hurco KMB1 many years ago.  What you might not know is its still on the trailer.  I pulled the Procraft out of the shop and parked the trailer inside the shop to keep the mill out of the weather.

You might think I’ve been lazy, but the things is there is so much stuff in my shop even if I knew where to put the mill there really isn’t any room for it.  Heck I only recently set the turret lathe I bought a while ago off the rollers onto the floor, and I still don’t have it hooked up yet either.  The 14×40 Precision Mathews is still doing all the turning for now.

I have been working towards making room in the shop to work again.  See: 40 Ft High Cube

I discovered some okay, but kinda pricey shelving to go into the new storage area.  See: Buy 3 Get 2 Free

I spent most of last weekend working on that, and during the week did the usual work in the shop handling customers and making molds.

This morning I replaced a cable that had gotten knocked off the spool on one of the overhead doors in the shop, rebuilt a hydraulic cylinder on the shop tractor, (it was dumping hydraulic oil) and finally tried out my new tractor forks.  These are WAAAY better than slip on bucket forks, and amazingly enough easier to install.  Remove two clips and tilt the front of the bucket down, back out, pull into the forks, tilt up, and put the two clips back on.  It’s as easy as it sounds.